I was at a moderately priced Sushi restaurant a few weeks ago. While I was going through the menu, I saw that they had crab. When the waitress came by, I asked her if it was real crab.

She smiled coyly, and informed me, “It is imitation crab.”

“How come it doesn’t say ‘imitation’ on the menu?” I was puzzled.

“If it was real, we would say ‘Not imitation.’”

“Logical enough. So this is fake crab. Can I pay with fake money?”

She turned cold. “Counterfeit money is illegal, sir.”

I got it. Two lessons learned: One, fake food is legal, but fake money is not. Second, fake food is the default — if it’s real, they will tell us.

The next day, as if by Laws of Attraction, I read an article that said 84 percent of white tuna in sushi restaurants is actually escolar, the snake mackerel fish that causes – sorry for being graphic – oily anal leakage, and was banned by the FDA until 1992. It is still banned in Japan, Italy, and requires warning labels regarding the leaky discharge in Canada, Sweden and Denmark.

And it’s not just fish. Fakeness has become epidemic.

More than 75 percent of honey in the supermarket is not even honey. Just corn syrup, mixed with some chemicals that smell and taste like honey.

I started buying organic honey a while ago, and I could tell it tasted wonderful and different. But guess what? Soon I learned that the term “organic” can be applied to something that is only 75 percent organic. So what I should be looking for is “100% Organic.” Preferably, “USDA certified”. And just when I thought I had found the perfect honey, my friend brought me back to reality saying, “What you also need to look for is the phrase “raw and unfiltered”. And “pure” might be another good word as well.”

If you just get olive oil, you are in for a big surprise. What you need is Extra Virgin Cold Pressed Olive Oil. (I wonder if the Bible describes Mary as “Extra Virgin”?)

So there are all kinds of adjectives we need to memorize and remember, if we want to get good, real food.

Salmon? Did you make sure it is ‘Wild’, or at least ‘Responsibly Farm Raised with no Antibiotics, or Hormones’? If you get chicken or beef, make sure it is organic. ‘Natural’ doesn’t mean anything these days. And verify the ratings of how the animals were raised. Sometimes it is good to have lower numbers, and sometimes you need to look for higher numbers.

Eggs? Regular eggs are from tormented, sick chickens. And I used to think ‘cage free’ was awesome. Nope. It doesn’t really mean much, in spite of the heart-warming pictures of happy chickens they have on the cartons. So, organic eggs are much better. But, really, you have to get ‘100% USDA certified organic pastured eggs.’

If you are at a fancy restaurant, they will have beef from ‘grass-fed cows.’ Wow, what a concept. Cows have been eating grass since the days of dinosaurs, but now it’s a high-priced novelty! (To be fair, I didn’t do any research on the evolutionary origin of cows).

Of course, always look for anything that says there is no genetically modified stuff. ‘No GMO’, ‘Non-GMO’ etcetera are good things to see on labels.

This is crazy! Everything is upside down. Real things should not need adjectives. Altered and fake things should need adjectives.

We should not need an Excel sheet to remember every damn set of adjectives for every single thing we eat or buy.

It’s time to shift the burden to the industry that profits from fake food. Let them have an asterisk next to everything that is not real, and in a box below, let them explain how the real thing has been altered. Let them say ‘filtered, heated, processed, 90% GMO corn syrup honey.’ Chocolate should be marked ‘involves pesticide, child labor, and unfair trade.’ And, of course, imitation crab will no longer be called crab.

Everything real should just be known by its real name. Absence of adjectives should be a good thing.

On the other hand, if the marketing gurus at the food industry really need to have an adjective, here is one: JFF—Just F***ing Food TM. And call me first, please. I have it trademarked.

Chris Kanthan has degrees in Physics and Engineering with a minor in Economics. And, just for fun, a diploma in Paralegal. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, has traveled to more than 30 countries, and deeply cares about politics, finance and food. He has also written an e-book titled "Deconstructing Monsanto" that is available on iTunes, Amazon.com and Smashwords.com. He can be reached at chrisk2000@yahoo.com.

Thank you for not sugar coating your words – even with 100% organic USDA certified fair trade sucanat!! This article is brilliant, to the point, engaging, and had me LMAO at the end! You have a new fan!!!

Welcome to the World–not the World of…, but just the World. We’re in it for the long run. Better be literate, because if you can’t read product labels, mouse print and legal briefs you soon will not be able to live. You will die from lack of information, which you will have to acquire constantly throughout the day–whether it be FAKE news, e.g. Twitter feeds, network news, whispers on the street, website links to fake stories or medical breakthrough press releases perpetuated by the media (“This discovery COULD mean the end of —— in the very near future. Scientists at GenoPomp report in the Journal of Death-defying Medicine that all life will be fake by the year 2020.”) Just be very worried when the fake crab is actually found moving on the beach and consuming real crab, which have barcodes on them to identify their origin–in which factory they were assembled. BTW, have you heard about “grass fed” cattle that are actually munching on astro turf?

Cinnamonbark

April 10, 2013 at 1:43 pm

God this was vindicating and SO GOOD to read!! I live in a food desert, and sometimes I think I’m the only one who cares about this, thinks this way!! I’m sharing this. And YES, I JUST WANT F***ING FOOD TOO!!!!

I just cannot trust any food anymore – after several shocks when
discovering what I’d been ‘carefully’ buying and feeding my family, over
a year ago I decided to read every label on the few packaged foods I
still purchase.
Feeling silly, read the salt box – contains sugar and ‘preservatives’
[isn’t salt the oldest preservative in the history of humankind?].
Buttermilk – corn starch, and a host of other thickening agents and
chemicals to keep them suspended [for ‘mouth feel’ the dairy rep told
me]. Ditto cottage cheese, yoghurt – the so-called ‘healthy
choices’.
And they keep evolving – same brand and package of many of these now
contain high fructose corn syrup. This, I occasionally rant, is a fraud.
Fake food. These additions [and deletions]
from the essential original product change it to something else without
concern for the altered nutritional composition [never mind
taste].
And ‘fresh’ produce and meat/chicken/fish et al are adulterated as
well. That garlic [from China]? Not garlic. some sort of onion modified
to [suggest the] taste of garlic. The ‘fresh’ chicken? ‘Flavour
enhancers’ as ‘broth’ ie lots of water, adding valueless weight, high
fructose corn syrup, sodiums, other thing, also adding weight in
addition to cheap industrial crap. Same with so called ‘fresh’ meats
and the rest. Smoked? nope. a bath of chemicals including dangerous
nitrates and others are infused with thickeners to the meat to simulate
smoked and aged – this allows for very fast aging I must say! Butchered,
smoked and wrapped up in a ‘country quaint’ wrapper, simulating the
family farm, loaded by the ton into the bigrigs and whoosh – out of the
factory and into your grocery aisle.., all in a blink of an eye.

And, my greatest heartbreak – the ‘whole wheat’ fiasco: breads [and
wheat flour and other flour products] are not what is traditionally
thought of as ‘whole’ meaning the whole grain ground up with all the
good natural vitamins and minerals intact. Nope. Some time ago the FDA
allowed whole to mean plain old white flour with some marginal amount of
wheat bran added in – along with colours etc to simulate the real
food. Asked the bakery and was informed ‘whole
grain’ is the proper reference. But, when I checked that out lately – it
now [or maybe always] starts as white cheap flour again with some
grains and bran and colour added back. Oh yeah, with cheap synthetic
‘vitamins and minerals’ – representative of only a portion of what
should be there. Often odd things like cheap
non-viable calcium [‘for health’, wink nod], a ton of salt [the single
largest source of salt in our diet nowadays], and the obligatory high
fructose and the rest of the weighty additions – applied ‘. No protein,
which should be a there as a good source especially for vegetarians –
when combined with beans or rice, corn – this used to make a ‘complete’
protein food and was very satisfying.
Oh, but wait – the rice is stripped as well and don’t eat the ‘whole’
rice [brown] because of the exceedingly high arsenic mercury content the
pediatricians recently warned us about – in a full page NYT ad because
the FDA refused to respond over many years. And corn – like beets and
other ‘wonderful’ produce we are encouraged to eat? Modified into quite
another ‘animal’ – pretty much all starch – designed primarily for sugar
production, and virtually no ‘germ’ left – the sweet spot where the
proteins and vital nutrients once resided.

Not long ago these
were quality foods, plentiful, inexpensive, tasty, and highly nutrient
dense. The food of the gods, the ‘staples’ that could support a healthy population even
with little else available.
And, don’t even begin to look at what has happened to the potato.

Thank you Sadie. You have enough wonderful points for another article!

Desiree

April 8, 2013 at 11:35 pm

Its sickening.

tami canal

April 8, 2013 at 11:11 pm

Hey, Chris. I admin at March Against Monsanto. I’ve shared your article on the page, as well as GMO Free USA & The Anti Media. We would love it if you would consider speaking at one of our rally/marches on May 25th. Let me know. You can contact me through the page or my email. -Tami

Karen

April 8, 2013 at 6:50 pm

Amen!

Alexis Trenda

April 8, 2013 at 6:42 pm

AMEN!

Susan W

April 8, 2013 at 5:12 pm

Great article – and I so echo the sentiments! Today’s fauxfood seems like cheap substitutes at best, chemical warfare at worst. Whatever happened to accountability for false advertising? And GMO companies successfully argued against labeling by asserting that their product is virtually the same as the real thing while simultaneously obtaining patent rights by claiming their product is so unique it warrants protection! Food and health have become completely disconnected, branded corporate commodities in our society. Eating what you grow is the only way you’ll know!

Amazing article! So true and so sad. “Fake is the default”- wow. Everything regarding mainstream food is so backwards. Thank you for your continued witty insight and being an overall health and wellness prophet. Preach on Chris!